Israel's Rabbi Ovadia Yosef dies at 93
[A profoundly evil man], influential spiritual leader of Sephardic Jewish community and ultra-Orthodox Shas party dies in Jerusalem hospital. ■ Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, 93, underwent heart surgery at Jerusalem's Hadassah hospital on September 23 where he had remained since then, with doctors saying just days ago his condition had improved. But late on Sunday, the hospital said his condition had suddenly worsened, with medics confirming it as critical on Monday. "After a long struggle, the rabbi died just a few moments ago," the hospital spokesman told public radio on Monday. Yosef, whose son Yitzhak Yosef was elected chief rabbi of Israel's Sephardic Jews in June, a post he himself had previously held, had been in and out of hospital for months. He wielded enormous influence among Israeli Jews of Middle Eastern and North African ancestry, and had frequently been a kingmaker in the country's fickle coalition politics.
“Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world; only to serve the People of Israel,” he said during a public discussion of what kind of work non-Jews are allowed to perform on Shabbat. “Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat,” he said to some laughter.
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